Indulgently rich browned butter, sweet, luscious figs, and a spicy hit of Cognac wrapped into a flaky shortbread – What more could you ask for in a cookie?

Recipe makes about a dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Browned Butter
  • make Browned Butter
    • melt butter in a sauce pan
    • give it an occasional stir, so that the milk solids brown evenly and don’t burn, as they separate out from the butter fat
    • when the butter has turned a beautiful golden toffee color, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool
    • for this recipe, we need the browned butter to re-solidify, so return it to the fridge for a few hours before baking with it – I actually like to do this step a day or two before hand.
• 1/3 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 tbsp Cognac
• 6 dried Figs

Directions:

1. In a food processor, pulse the figs until they’re chopped into bit sized chunks.
2. Add in the dry ingredients, and give the processor a slight pulse to distribute the figs throughout the flour.
3. Cut the browned butter into chunks, and add it into the processor.
4. Pulse until the dough begins to form pea sized chunks.
5. Add in the vanilla and cognac.
6. Pulse until the dough comes together.
7. Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper, and use the parchment to mold the dough into a long log.
8. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for a couple of hours or overnight. If you are leaving your dough overnight, make sure that the dough is properly sealed to keep it from drying out.
9. 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 325 F (~163 C).
10. With a sharp knife, slice the dough log at ~1/4 inch intervals.
11. Place the cookies on greased or parchment lined baking sheets.  Poke with fork (optional).
12. Bake for ~18 minutes.